Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Aardwolf on September 21, 2014, 02:48:50 pm
-
So, we all how unrealistic the "lasers" of FreeSpace are... they emit light when passing through a vacuum, and they travel at very subluminal speeds. It was unrealistic, but it was fun, and so were the tech descriptions (even though they didn't match the gameplay), so I was willing to accept the discrepancy. That said, I quite liked FS2's addition of "photon beam cannons" which actually behaved like photon beams, crossing the whole field of engagement [nearly] instantaneously.
Some people (the Blue Planet team in particular) have retconned these as magnetically contained plasma weapons. Personally, I didn't much care for this.
Nonetheless, a while ago I came up with a "theory" which would allow the weapons to be all of these things as once: "magnetically contained plasma weapon", "slow-moving, light-emitting blob", and the surprising one: "laser".
Consider the GTW-66 Maxim Cannon. Although the tech title is "Cannon", the tech anim is "Tech_GTW-66_Maxim_Gun". It's named after the Maxim Gun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_gun); according to the Wikipedia article "The Maxim gun was the first recoil-operated machine gun, invented by Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim in 1884. It has been called 'the weapon most associated with British imperial conquest'." We are not expected to believe that the GTW-66 Maxim Cannon is based on such archaic technology.
Similarly, consider how modern frigates are scarcely related to the "frigates" of the ships-of-the-line days.
What I propose is that sometime between now and when FreeSpace happens, the LASER becomes a historically significant weapon of war. Then later, that technology falls out of favor. Eventually (but still before the events of FreeSpace), someone makes a new class of magnetically-contained plasma weapon, and names it "laser" in honor of the historically significant weapon of wars past. This class of weapon becomes so immensely popular that all of its offshoots are called "lasers" as well.
Things not covered by this theory (but not exactly holes in it): the HL-7, which is described as a "Xaser" weapon; also "photon beam cannons"; there may be some FS1 tech descriptions I've neglected, as well.
Also it's entirely silly, as it's making up lore to patch other made-up lore to patch something I was just willing to accept as the devs not knowing what they were talking about.
-
Weapon tech entries should honestly be banned from mods completely in my opinion. :P Waste of time and effort to simply "sci-fy" something that is not real anyways.
-
So, we all how unrealistic the "lasers" of FreeSpace are... they emit light when passing through a vacuum, and they travel at very subluminal speeds. It was unrealistic, but it was fun, and so were the tech descriptions (even though they didn't match the gameplay), so I was willing to accept the discrepancy. That said, I quite liked FS2's addition of "photon beam cannons" which actually behaved like photon beams, crossing the whole field of engagement [nearly] instantaneously.
Some people (the Blue Planet team in particular) have retconned these as magnetically contained plasma weapons. Personally, I didn't much care for this.
Well in reality, a "photon beam" would just really be the description of a laser (or maser, or xaser, or whatever other wavelength you're talking about). The idea of magnetically-contained plasma fits much better with some of the fluff dialog in the game, like "Commence plasma core insertion," and relativistic plasma beams would look as almost-instantaneous as the beam cannons do.
-
The point was that the photons were finally behaving like photons.
-
A giant beam visible from all directions and at great distances is not an accurate description of a laser.
-
More like photons. Sheesh.
-
Laser Excited, Magnetically Contained Plasma.
The acronym wasn't particularly catchy, so laymen just called the whole thing as a "laser" even though it's scientifically wrong. That's my story and I'm sticking with it. :P
-
:yes: at least until they figure out how to turn light into mass. XD
-
Weapon tech entries should honestly be banned from mods completely in my opinion. :P Waste of time and effort to simply "sci-fy" something that is not real anyways.
Some people enjoy reading (and writing) them.
-
I always assumed that the laser thing was a description of the mechanism used to make the plasma. shoot laser into a gas -> make plasma -> ??? -> blow **** up.
though I suppose laser being something of a genericised term for fighter based weapon is as good as any. I mean we call them guns, and they are not using a chemical reaction to propel a mass.
-
Weapon tech entries should honestly be banned from mods completely in my opinion. :P Waste of time and effort to simply "sci-fy" something that is not real anyways.
Anything else that should be banned?
-
Weapon tech entries should honestly be banned from mods completely in my opinion. :P Waste of time and effort to simply "sci-fy" something that is not real anyways.
Anything else that should be banned?
Smiles and good fun should be banned too.
-
Guns is just a term for a munition delivery system. You don't call missiles "racks or tubes" navy captains don't say "fire the shells!" When referring to massive deck guns, (Although tank drivers call "heat" or "sabot" oddly enough)
There's no reason why you can't use laser to describe something related in your fluff :yes:
-
Exactly. They could quite easily have been actual lasers 100-200 years before Freespace 2 and the term simply never changed.
-
I don't know about you guys but to me torpedoes are just floating proximity bombs.
These self propelled underwater explosives? Not real torpedoes. Get it right.
-
I work in laser driven pulse plasma accelerator systems. As a result, all of my tech entries are based loosely on real science. It's still bull****, but I like getting people to think about real systems.
I also enjoy writing tech entries.
-
Some people enjoy reading (and writing) them.
One of the first things I look for in a post-Capella campaign setting is to check and see if someone's gone back and fixed the tech entries to reflect that. If that detail is taken care of, I am much more confident in the campaign in general.
-
How would you all say the Kayser fits into this discussion?
-
The tech entry for the Maxim is more obviously wrong than the one for the Kayser.
-
From the GTW Disruptor:
A gas-focused krypton laser - when the ship is in flight, the chamber of the GTW-41 rotates at a constant speed - a small amount of NO2 is injected into the container .05 ms prior to the emission of the laser light - the rotation of the NO2 in the chamber focuses the laser pulse to a state that is only very slightly (1%) diffused - after the laser pulse is emitted from the chamber into space, the chamber expels the NO2 into space (thus expelling ionized molecules and moisture) - the process repeats for each subsequent burst of laser energy - as this laser is very slightly diffused, it is not effective as a destructive weapon, but as a tactical weapon - the Disruptor Cannon is best suited and is used for the permanent disabling of enemy ship subsystems.
So when you fire laser weapons like the ML-16, Prometheus, Subach and so forth, what you're seeing is probably not the beam, but the spent gas from the chamber. That the damage only occurs on impact is probably a technical and gameplay limitation. Nobody wants to dogfight Shivans at light-minutes range...
:yes: at least until they figure out how to turn light into mass. XD
Light has mass! I don't know the proper equations but it would be interesting to see how much photon pressure would be exerted by a laser in the FS2 universe, given the standard of a Fury being a 3Kt nuke.
-
1. I am a man enjoying tech specs ^^.
2. Blob guns. If we'd propel a self-containing plasma blob with a continuous laser fire, that might be called a laser...
3. Beam cannons. Plasma properly contained in a huge laser beam might get accelerated to sub-light speed, plus it would reflect the photons from the laser so that the beam would be visible :).
-
what you're seeing is probably not the beam, but the spent gas from the chamber
Yet we still have to lead the target and that definitely would not have been necessary for a laser beam;) Still I like this explanation:)
-
Guns is just a term for a munition delivery system. You don't call missiles "racks or tubes" navy captains don't say "fire the shells!" When referring to massive deck guns, (Although tank drivers call "heat" or "sabot" oddly enough)
There's no reason why you can't use laser to describe something related in your fluff :yes:
The point with "HEAT" or "sabot" in a tank ist just the different kind of ammo. You although talk about Trebutchets, Harpoons oder Hornets (all secondary Weapons)
-
A long time ago people on the internet couldn't figure out the difference between a clip and a mag, and suddenly all weapons are now called lasers.
Also, qwadtep, light has zero mass, but it does have nonzero momentum. Maybe that's what you were thinking of.
-
Whatever strict definition says light has zero mass... is stupidly strict.
If you had a planet made of half matter and half antimatter, and you let it annihilate, but mirrors trapped the photons inside the original sphere of the planet, none of the "mass" properties of the planet would change: it would still produce the same gravity, respond the same way to gravity, and respond the same way to impulses.
-
FTR, clips hold sets of rounds in the box. Like you buy a box with 30 rounds, they might have have 3 clips of 10.
Then you take the rounds off the clip(s) and put them in the magazine, which goes in the weapon.
-
Whatever strict definition says light has zero mass... is stupidly strict.
If you had a planet made of half matter and half antimatter, and you let it annihilate, but mirrors trapped the photons inside the original sphere of the planet, none of the "mass" properties of the planet would change: it would still produce the same gravity, respond the same way to gravity, and respond the same way to impulses.
Given that most anti-matter/matter reactions emit in the gamma spectrum, there isn't any mirror in the universe capable of reflecting them. Further, photons are an exchange particle for the electromagnetic force - they don't interact with gravity at all other than to interact with its spatial curvature. They don't generate gravity.
Photons have no interaction whatsoever with mass. They are a quanta of the electromagnetic field. Photon pressure is the result of interactions with the electromagnetic fields of other charged particles - it is not a true exchange of momentum or mass, but instead an interaction of two fields.
As a result you can put a neutron in an incredibly intense EM field and produce virtually zero acceleration - its only interaction with the field itself is through its magnetic moment which is not sufficient enough to accelerate it.
-
While over-editing my reply, I finally decided to do my own research and discover a passage I can point to for proof the next time I have this argument with someone. Thanks, Rheyah, it never would've gotten done without you :P
From Wikipedia on "Mass-energy equivalence" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence):
[...] the invariant mass of systems is conserved, even when massive particles (particles with rest mass) within the system are converted to massless particles (such as photons). In such cases, the photons contribute invariant mass to the system, even though they individually have no invariant mass or rest mass. Thus, an electron and positron (each of which has rest mass) may undergo annihilation with each other to produce two photons, each of which is massless (has no rest mass). However, in such circumstances, no system mass is lost. Instead, the system of both photons moving away from each other has an invariant mass, which acts like a rest mass for any system in which the photons are trapped, or that can be weighed. Thus, not only the quantity of relativistic mass, but also the quantity of invariant mass does not change in transformations between "matter" (electrons and positrons) and energy (photons).
I like being right :D
-
Both Rheyah and that passage you quoted make it pretty clear that in these arguments you keep having you're not any more 'right' than the other person, you're just both speaking at cross purposes to each other.
-
No, Phantom Hoover, this isn't some bizarre reversal of that other thread.
I'm pretty sure Rheyah and I were not talking past each other, and that Rheyah learned something new today.
-
Yes, I'm sure that someone with doctoral-level physics experience who "work(s) in laser driven pulse plasma accelerator systems" learned something about the nature of light from a Wikipedia quote.
-
Strictly speaking the gravitational interaction of the mass of the system only propagates at the velocity of the photons themselves. The photons themselves are entirely massless - the conservation of the mass within the system contributes to their momentum. They definitely do not interact gravitationally and in the rest frame of the photon, you will find no field around them. If you do find a gravitational field around a photon, there's a Nobel prize in it for you.
Thus, they remain massless. It's a trick of mathematics that results in the interpretation you speak of - which while strictly speaking correct, is what in physics we refer to as a bit of a mathematical dodge, usually used to make computation of masses a little easier :)
And the PM you sent me - I've been recovering from a shoulder operation and am stoned out of my head on codeine. No offence taken.
EDIT: I should also note that momentum is not dependent on mass. The momentum dependence in special relativity can be attributed to both velocity and mass. You can start a huge row in most physics departments by claiming to be a proponent of one or the other.
-
I should also note that the only methods we have of "weighing" a system rely on the coloumb force, with which photons interact.